The Lady Chablis

The Lady Chablis was a real person, a MtF trans individual who played herself in the movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. According to Wikipedia:

Clint Eastwood permitted The Lady Chablis to ad-lib some of her lines, but had to rein her in on occasion. He gave her the nickname the "one-take wonder". "We kind of hit the script in a roundabout way," confirmed John Cusack.

So I imagine the movie version of her was unusually true to life. It likely shows how she really spoke and behaved and she's frequently rude, crude and socially unacceptable.

I'm someone who gets viewed that way at times. I suspect there are multiple factors in that.

1. People who have served in the American military are somewhat inclined to view me as refreshingly direct, no nonsense, no bullshit. Other Americans are more inclined to think I'm rude, crude and socially unacceptable.

2. I suspect I was a ridiculously cute toddler girl and rather than fuss at me when I said or did socially unacceptable things, people laughed at my antics. I was in my thirties before I stopped going "Why are you offended instead of amused?" and made a conscious effort to stop that.

3. I'm a recovered survivor of incest twice over.

That last factoid is rooted in me buttonholing random strangers and dumping on them starting at age sixteen. I did a year of therapy in my teens and two and a half years in my twenties and then one day in my twenties went "Oh. I'm traumatizing people. I should be pickier about when, where and how I talk about that."

So I want to make a few points.

First, if you are trans, you probably need to be willing and able to have frank, no nonsense conversations with people about uncomfortable sexual subjects. This is much like me dealing with being sexually assaulted effectively.

There's nothing inherently wrong with that. But you might see less social friction if you get a little choosier about when, where, why and with whom you have those conversations.

Second, if gender is a social construct -- and I think it is -- you are trying to code switch and learn a new culture. Similar to me needing to work at being more diplomatic with people not part of military culture.

In the movie, The Lady Chablis is very aggressive about hitting on John Kelso. This is not normal behavior for a woman.

If you watch the movie, you might want to compare this to the conversations between Kelso and Mandy who more circumspectly says "We're fresh out of petunias." to mean "I'm not interested in being treated like a ho, used and discarded." 

It's especially interesting because Mandy is uncommonly direct and empowered for a woman. 

Third, whomever you are, we all have our quirks. What was "cute and funny" when I was three stopped being cute and funny and I was a bit slow to drop it.

Don't attribute everything to "I'm trans and they are transphobic."

That's a good way to make sure you never make your life work.

If something isn't working socially, it's not working. It's generally more constructive to focus on things you can change rather than assuming it's something about yourself you can't change and assuming it's random bias or hatred.

I'm aware random bias and hatred exist. But painting with too broad a brush alienates potential allies who are extremely tired of being attacked as transphobic if they disagree with anything you say or do.